


Fleet

by goddessofcruelty



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, F/F, Femslash, Femslash February, Mercenaries, Minor Character Death, Rare Pairings, Secret Relationship, Space Pirates, Spaceships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-12 23:35:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3359450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goddessofcruelty/pseuds/goddessofcruelty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Claire glances down as a little bubble pops up on her screen. Tapping it, a nonsense string of letters and numbers streams across her vision, and she glances up briefly at Chambers as she automatically decodes it. It's a star cluster, has nothing to do with their journey and anyone else might thin kit's a random glitch, but that particular's system has a famous nebula in it. That shares a nickname with a particular corner of the ship where they grow hydroponics to supplement their protein and grain bars</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fleet

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Krissy/Claire - space AU

“Chambers, you got those coordinates yet?”

Krissy sets her jaw and flicks through the math as quickly as possible, eyes rapidly scanning star charts and plotting stops. Another agonizingly long three full minutes, with the entire bridge crew breathing down her neck, and she's got it, flicks her fingers and sends them to the nav console, tossing a thumbs up to the captain and then goes back to work, plotting the next jumps after that.

“Novak?”

“Affirmative, Captain.”

“Launch, kid, and lets get the hell out of here.”

Claire sets her jaw at being called kid by someone only a few years older than her, but they're all young up here, orphans who signed into the Fleet to get away from the overcrowded scummy planets they were born on. She does her job though, because discipline is tight, and she doesn't want to lose the only berth she's got.

Once they're moving fast enough, she ignites the FTL, and pushes the warning button. Everyone straps themselves down wherever they are, bracing for the shift. No one's yet come up with a way to make the transition easy, and one way to tell the newts is by how sick they get.

Claire glances down as a little bubble pops up on her screen. Tapping it, a nonsense string of letters and numbers streams across her vision, and she glances up briefly at Chambers as she automatically decodes it. It's a star cluster, has nothing to do with their journey and anyone else might thin kit's a random glitch, but that particular's system has a famous nebula in it. That shares a nickname with a particular corner of the ship where they grow hydroponics to supplement their protein and grain bars.

Claire just blinks twice and deletes the item. She goes on about her shift on the bridge, expertly navigating to Chambers' calculations until oh-one-hundred, and then heads straight to the mess for some chow.

Chambers is off in another half-hour, and so Claire rushes through her food and hurries back to her tiny little quarters, and strips from her uniform, grabbing one of her precious wipes and cleaning herself as thoroughly as possible.

By the time oh-two-hundred rolls around, Claire is pacing anxiously outside the Butterfly Garden, careful to stay out of the line of sight of the security cameras. There are a few places on the ship that aren't recorded somehow, and Krissy has apparently searched them all out, because she's shown them all to Claire.

“Hey, Novak,” she murmurs as she finally comes into view, and Claire grins, bright and beautiful.

“Hey, yourself,” Claire beams, reaching out to take her fellow bridge officer into her arms. They've got fifteen, maybe twenty minutes before someone notices that they're both nowhere to be found.

Fraternizing within the crew is strictly prohibited, and anyone found together would be separated to different ships. First loyalty is always supposed to be Fleet, the organization that saved them all.

-

Thirteen minutes later, Claire slips away, once again put together, and heads straight for the library, where she nabs a reader and curls up on one of the soft couches there.

Sure enough, someone comes looking for her for something or the other, and she spends the rest of her off-shift working, before she can finally crash at her allotted time. She gets about five hours of sleep before a klaxon sounds, calling the day crew to work, and she tugs on her uniform and heads to the bridge. They're less than an hour out from their destination, and it's time for the briefing.

Chambers comes in just after she does, and Claire gives her a pleasant nod and lets her gaze slide away rather than catch, even though she'd like nothing more than to stare into the other's eyes for hours.

Someone brings java and Claire breathes in the pungent scent of the hot drink with gratitude, then turns her attention to the front of the room. Captain Annie Jones touches the screen behind her and brings up a picture.

“This is Lady Casey. She's a diplomat we're going to be escorting to some conference out in the Xenith sector.”

The screen flashes to a sleek yacht, and Krissy whistles low and leans forward. “Would ya look at that pretty lady.”

The Captain chuckles. “Yeah and she's got one of those new auto-navs, so you and Novak are out of a job for this one.”

They can't help but exchange a glance, but it's not fraternizing, it's shared skepticism.

“If it's alright by you, Cap,” Krissy drawls, “think I'll run the numbers anyhow.”

“No way I'm letting someone else plot my course,” Claire says more softly, but just as intensely.  
Jones looks between the two women, and then nods finally. “Alright, it may be a waste of resources, but I'm not real keen on trusting that new tech anyhow.”

“Thank you, Cap,” they echo, and the rest of the senior officers relax, let loose a tension they'd all been suffused with upon hearing that someone else was doing the nav.

The rest of the briefing passes without incident, and they all take over on the bridge as Lady Casey's face comes on the screen, greeting the Captain formally.

“Thank you, Captain Jones, for the escort. I'm having the coordinates sent to you now.”

Cap just nods once. “We'll signal when we're ready.”

The Lady inclines her head in acquiescence, and vanishes from their screen.

Chambers swears under her breath as she compares the numbers.

“Cap,” she says at last, dark eyes lifting up. “These ain't right.”

Claire glances down and runs through the star map and then frowns as she meets Chamber's gaze, and then shifts to the Captain's. “These'll put us right in the middle of the Dead Zone.”

Captain Jones narrows her eyes a moment and then sends a brief burst over to the Lady's yacht. “Brief issue, momentary delay.”

She sends another burst on a secure line to the Admiral, and it's a tense thirty seconds while they wait for the response to her query about the mission. The entire senior staff is watching when Jones lifts her eyes. “Plot the course, Chambers,” she says, and there's a soft muttered...something from out Leah Gideon's way. Curse or prayer – or some mix of both.

But Krissy's a professional, and she plots the points in, notes the discrepancies from the auto-nav's math, and there's a quick flying back and forth as she works together with Novak to arrange their course.

“Parallel but further out,” Claire says to the Captain, “and we'll come in at an angle to them.”

Jones purses her lips a second and then nods, sending her readiness to the yacht, and then darts a glance back to Claire. “Launch.”

-

They find themselves in the middle of a firefight, and Fitzgerald is the only one who's pleased about this state of events, sending out phaser blasts with accuracy startling in their older model ship. She keeps them on the winning side for far longer than she should have, and they're awarded a fair amount of respect when the ship is finally boarded.

“Fleet ship Angel,” the boarding Captain announces to the ship, dark hair pulled back in a tight, professional bun. “All non-comms will be ransomed off to Fleet, as will junior officers. Pack your things, you'll be escorted to our holding bay shortly.”

She puts the comm down, and saunters over to the gunner. “What's your name, kid?”

“Nancy Fitzgerald,” she says, dark eyes flashing in defiance.

“Welcome to my crew,” the Captain says, and the gunner is bodily hauled off, fighting the mercenaries who've taken her as best she can with no weapons. The dark-haired victor then turns her attention to Captain Jones, and studies her for a long minute. Without saying a word, the enemy Captain lifts her blaster and shoots Jones in the heart. She's dead before she hits the ground. Claire can't stop staring at the body. She's seen death before, all vets have, but not quite as casually as this.

Chambers and Novak are the only crew left on the bridge now, everyone has been shuffled off to be ransomed, and the Captain turns her attention to them.

“So this is Jones' brain trust,” she says to Chambers, and then unexpectedly offers her hand. “I'm Captain Masters, and I'd like to offer you a job.”

Krissy and Claire exchange a glance that says a thousand words and Krissy crosses her arms. “We're a team and we don't like no fraternizing rules.”

Captain Masters arches a brow and tilts her head, studying the dark-haired astrogator a long moment. “You'll share quarters and get a three quarter share of the take each.”

Krissy arches a brow at Claire, and it's she who reaches out and takes Captain Master's hand. “Deal.”

“What happens to the yacht?” Krissy asks next.

Captain Masters wrinkles up her nose. “We're stripping it and selling the scrap.” Then she chuckles low. “Those auto navs are way too easy to feed false information to.”

Krissy offers her arm to Claire, who tucks hers into her lovers, and they follow Captain Masters to their new life as pirates.

 

**Author's Note:**

> In case it wasn't clear, The FLT Angel's senior crew:
> 
> Captain: Annie Jones  
> Astrogator: Krissy Chambers  
> Pilot: Claire Novak  
> Comm: Leah Gideon  
> Weapons: Nancy Fitzgerald
> 
> Also, they're both merc outfits, FLT and DMN (Meg's crew), FLT recrews by offering orphans a way offplant, and DMN goes around stealing other people's crew.


End file.
